From Submedia.tv
On Halloween night a crew of 100 peeps in costumes marched on the neighborhood of Hochelaga in Montreal, and handed candy to kids and neighbors. They also spray painted condominiums and businesses they say are contributing to gentrification. They also smashed luxury cars and when a cop cruiser tried to run them over they responded with a volley of rocks, and like ghosts disappeared into the night.
Lafontaine Park
From SubMedia.tv
In less than a year seven oil pipelines in the US and Canada have been shutdown by climate activists, costing oil companies millions. Here’s how they did it.
CORRECTION: In our haste to produce a video homage to Jean Leger, we mis-identified the three people in Sarnia as women, when two identify as queer and one as non-gender binary. We apologize for this oversight and will do our best to research the gender identities of people in our videos.
In Montreal, while representatives from 191 governments met in talks under the umbrella of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN agency to discuss “security environments” in international aviation, we took action to expose their hypocrisy and affirm our solidarity with the ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes (NDDL).
On the eve of the end of the week of international mobilization against the airport NDDL and it’s world, we held banners for half and hour in support of the ZAD at the ICAO Headquarters, to disrupt, if only for moments, their barren universe. The ZAD in NDDL is not only a foot in the mouth of the French government, AGO Vinci, and all the shareholders of this airport project, but also an example of autonomy, self-defense and a breach of their attempt to commodify everything around them.
Threats are intensifying against the ZAD and we need to take note of the situation, despite the ocean between us; to affirm our active solidarity and full support to this gratifying example of resistance whose ethincs and objectives go beyond the grove itself! Expulsion or not, we’ll be there to support the ZAD as much as we can, because it represents for us one of the greatest signs of hope and inspiration of our time, not only for our political struggles and the living earth, but also on all aspects of the existing (food autonomy, social relationships, love, everyday life and others)!
VINCI, RESISTANCE, SABOTAGE
VIVE LA COMMUNE
VIVE LA ZAD
YOUR COMRADES AND FRIENDS IN MONTREAL
From It’s Going Down
It hardly seems necessary to summarize what has gone down inside U.S. prisons since September 9th. Hunger strikes, work stoppages, and riots have spread throughout the country on a scale that we likely aren’t even fully aware of yet. Some uprisings appeared took us by surprise, such as in several Florida prisons, while others presumably grew from recent organizing endeavors on the inside, such as at Kinross in Michigan or Holman in Alabama. By rough estimates, over 20,000 prisoners were involved in some way. That’s huge.
On the outside, solidarity burned so brightly all over the world. Banner drops, graffiti slogans, noise demonstrations and more showed that we had the backs of all who would partake in the strike. It is worth noting however that the vast majority of this took place the first weekend of the strike. But this prison strike—and the struggle against prisons more broadly—is about more than a day or a week. It didn’t start on September 9th and it isn’t ending any time soon. Some prisoners may return to work while others decide to stop working for the first time. It’s easier when there is a definitive date to take action on, to build momentum towards, but that’s not going to be enough.
Therefore, we would like to offer a call for renewed actions in solidarity with the prison strike and the struggle against prison society. Right now many are organizing anti-repression campaigns for striking prisoners and that is of course very necessary and not nearly as exciting work. But it would be a mistake to conceive of this struggle in a linear fashion—that is to say, a single wave where we demonstrate as it crests and write letters as it crashes. How many prisoners hadn’t heard about the strike until after it had started? How many knew but didn’t think people would actually be there to support them? Three weeks after the start of the strike, inmates in Turbeville, South Carolina rebelled against a guard and took over their dorm. How can we stop while inmates are still risking their lives for freedom?
We propose the week of October 15th – 22nd for a concentration of actions to remind everyone locked up by the State that we will always have their back. Once again, it is important to take these dates with a grain of salt. No one’s going to judge you if you take action on October 23rd, or in November, or even in 2017. Neither should anyone sit on their hands waiting for the 15th to get going. New Year’s Eve should also be kept in mind, which has traditionally seen noise demonstrations outside of prisons every year, despite being an equally arbitrary date.
When times seem slow and uneventful we let ourselves stagnate, but imagination and revolt are like muscles: the less we use them the weaker they become. We can push back the boredom of less eventful times and point towards insurrection. Solidarity actions and struggling on our own timelines is a way we can create momentum and tension when there isn’t much.
– “Our Own Timelines” Anathema, Vol 2 Issue 6
It is undeniable that many comrades exist outside of realities where organizing a protest or noise demonstration is tenable. Many of us are still searching for a few like-minded comrades, let alone attempting to bring out a crowd. There are still opportunities to act, whether it is a one or two person team dropping a banner or putting up posters, or hosting a letter writing or informational event that can help connect future accomplices. It certainly can never be overstated how important writing letters of support and calling in to prisons is in and of itself, but why pass on an opportunity to build our capacity?
If nothing else, we should all feel ashamed that the most active city in terms of U.S. prison strike solidarity actions is Athens, Greece. They already have such a head start but we can at least give them a bit of challenge, can’t we?
– Some Restless Uncontrollables
Here are some posters for distribution. Oh, whoops, how did this wheatpaste recipe get here?
From It’s Going Down
This summer, during nocturnal escapades, around thirty pylons had bolts removed. They were unbolted to different degrees, on some there are bars missing, others shake with the wind, threatening to collapse. The construction of hydroelectric dams has devastated territories, polluted rivers and ravaged life that exists there. It isn’t a clean energy. High-tension lines are part of a large network of energy transportation infrastructures, along with pipelines, ports, highways, airports, etc. Their construction serves only one goal: industrial development. Let’s sabotage the world that needs such constructions, in all its forms. We used ratchets and 15/16 and 1 1/8 sized parts.
Friends of the night
From subMedia.tv
Over 50 indigenous communities in the US and Canada, signed a historic pact to stop the expansion of Canada’s Tar Sands oil extraction project.
Indigenous Leaders endorsed a treaty, in which they vow to support each other to stop infrastructure that would aid further development of the “Tar Sands.”
For more info go to treatyalliance.org
From subMedia.tv
Let’s face it, we live in a time where surveillance devices are all around us, be it police with video cameras, CCTV or citizens with mobile phones. So when we decide to take to the streets to oppose the state and their police, it’s wise to hid our identity.
For more tips on security culture check out these links:
From It’s Going Down
A Love Letter to Sacred Stone Camp
[from Hamilton, ON]
For weeks, your numbers and our hearts have swelled in unison.
The world is watching as you spark the revolution.
We all wish that we could join you but realize we have ways to help from here.
We have work to do right here.
And so we offer up a small act of resistance. Of defiance.
A rejection of their narrative.
Enbridge is funding the Dakota Access pipeline, as well as Line 9 here.
As of one week ago, a merger made them the largest energy delivery company on Turtle Island.
But the era of oil snakes is over.
Gone are the days where companies can profit off death and destruction unopposed.
Enbridge has blood on their hands.
We have made this clear by using our hands to cover their Hamilton office in red prints.
A message was left on the windows to have it known we stand in solidarity.
There are those that will conflate this with an act of violence.
Yet stay silent as corporations use the mouths of hounds as weapons against women and children.
These are people who value property above people.
Things over beings.
Some of us have blood responsibilities to protect the land and water.
The rest have the responsibility to support those protectors.
We fight for the water and land. For life.
And for a world where we don’t have to.
We are with you. We are watching.
We stand with Standing Rock.
From Prison Radio Show
A Letter in Support of Prisoners in the US who are striking against prison slavery
First, we want to tell you that you are not alone! We are keeping our eyes on your struggles. We support you!
In your call for a strike on September 9th you evoke the uprising in Attica that began on September 9, 1971. You write about ending prison slavery by ceasing to be slaves yourselves. We see you. We hear you. We support you.
We are a group of people, some in prison, some not in prison, and some who are in between. We are critical of the prison system and all its trappings. We would like to share with you some stories of our struggles.
Where we are, there is a traditional work stoppage inside federal prisons on August 10th. Though stronger in years past, Prisoners Justice Day is a day when prisoners here refuse to eat, refuse to work, refuse to leave our cells. We commemorate those who have died in prison. When the tradition started in 1974, prison officials would punish us for it, write us up, lock us up, dock our pay. One day in Collins Bay Penitentiary, a federal prison in Ontario, the kitchen decided to not cook breakfast on August 10th. They knew we were not planning to eat, but we knew that this day is about more than fasting. We lined up in their kitchen demanding breakfast and one by one disposed of it in the garbage.
Federal prisoners in Canada pay room and board. In 2013, our pay was docked and half of that was justified by an increase in room and board payments. In February of 2016, we wrote a list of demands to the federal government. We excerpt the section on work and pay here:
“We protest the cuts to our wages. We should have access to real wages, not pennies. CorCan (Corrections Canada Industries) is a separate entity of Correctional Services Canada (CSC). Its mission was to provide meaningful employment and skills. It was a way for long term prisoners to keep their families together and short-termers to build some money for release. In fall 2013, prisoners’ pay was cut. The bonuses/incentives that prisoners used to receive for working at CorCan were taken away… Currently, the maximum wage we make in 10 days is $69. Of that sum, we must pay $15.18 to kitchen services, $5.52 to telephone services and maintenance, $11 to television fees and maintenance, and $3.73 to savings. Only $33.57 remains. Our pay rates have not been indexed to inflation since 1982.”
We went on to demand access to the provincial minimum wage, access to the Canadian Pension Plan, and real workplace insurance. We demanded access to trades and training while in prison that have an accreditation that is recognized on the outside. We have, thus far, received no concrete response to our demands.
The complete list of demands to the federal government is included with this letter. (As this is an email, here is a link to the entire list of demands: www.demandprisonschange.wordpress.com).
If you want to write to us, for whatever reason, you can reach us here:
PO Box 55051
CP Mackay
Montreal, Quebec
H3G2W5
or at demandprisonschange@riseup.net
In commemoration of all those who have died inside, including the prisoners who died in the uprising at Attica, when state troopers stormed the prison with shotguns and teargas, we connect our struggle to yours. We will be watching.
In solidarity,
the Termite Collective
